Minister of Labour, Pension System, Family and Social Policy Josip Aladrovic said on Wednesday that each new epidemiological measure would be accompanied by an economic countermeasure, a sort of compensation for the business sector that would be presented soon.

“We have shown so far that we know how to cope with the pandemic by using compensatory measures,” Minister Aladrovic told reporters, announcing that with the new epidemiological measures to be adopted due to the deteriorated epidemiological situation, the government would also present new economic countermeasures.

Aware of the uncertainty faced by businesses, notably in the services sector, the government will help all enterprises that find themselves in an unfavourable situation, the minister said, adding that the new economic countermeasures would be announced in the next few days, after the new epidemiological measures were defined.

“Each epidemiological measure will have an economic countermeasure. That is how we have acted since the first day of the epidemic,” claimed Aladrovic.

Asked whether the government was willing to compensate night club owners for shutting down their businesses, Aladrovic said that the economy cannot afford demands based on “a certain percentage of last year’s income.”

“That depends on what you consider to be compensation, the measures applied so far can be considered as compensation, too,” he said.

Aladrovic reiterated that the government had invested HRK 7.5 billion in the business sector to offset the consequences of the coronavirus crisis.

The Croatian Chamber of Trades and Crafts (HOK) today called on the government to compensate tradesmen should their businesses have to go into lockdown and called for an urgent meeting to define the best solution to the hardships encountered by tradesmen in doing business in the current epidemic.